The Spine Race

Enduro

The Spine race (event website here) kicks off this saturday at 9:30am

It's one of the longest and toughest races out there. 420km, 12000 meters of climb, January and all the crap weather that entails, non-stop along the Peninne way (the spine of England that the name comes from).

I'll be taking part (the only Irish person that I know of). One of the cool things about this race is that all the competitors have to carry trackers, and the race can be viewed "live" on the internet here as a result. Not many races where that happens, so might be worth a look!

With the weather outside at the moment I'm starting to get apprehensive!

RacoonQueen

Sounds like great craic.

Best of luck with it E...look forward to tracking you, from the warmth of my couch.

ultrapercy

Best of luck, looks savage.

martyboy48

Looks amazing. It wasn't until I looked at the race route that I could truly see what's ahead of you, mindboggling

Spent a while on youtube then and watched some clips of it. It will have some amazing scenery but the weather will be a huge factor I'd say.
I'm sure you will enjoy every minute of it though

I'll follow with interest, good luck and stay safe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN7RXm7GkyI

average_runner

Best of luck with this. Fair play to you

opus

The very best of luck, hope the weather gods decide to smile on you all this weekend!

Bulmers

had quick look on the tracker and Enduro is currently 4th on this and the main bunch are a long way back. Seen some weather reports from UK and it must be tough going out there, fair play.

martyboy48

The Spine@10:30 11/01/2015...We are planning route changes due to the continuation of severe weather. These changes to the route will take place after CP3 Middleton in Teesdale mainly to CP4 Alston. They are designed to use available lower level routes and avoid the larger fells such as Cross Fell. For further information on the weather, visit the Met Officemetoffice.gov.uk/

Must be absolutely horrendous out there for them to be changing the route. Conditions were always going to be difficult but it must be getting to the point of an accident waiting to happen for this change.

?? competitors left,?? retirements as of now.... Says it all really..

Pavel Paloncy still on the move... Savage going...
Eoin and damien hall stopped for kip, could be the wise move, who knows...

There'll be some race report

Safe running Eoin, doing great....

snailsong

According to the tracker, Enduro is third and only 9 minutes off second.Horrendous conditions and a long way to go. All to play for.
Go Enduro.

Clearlier

There's a GPS tracker too. It's a little bit glitchy but a great tool nonetheless. No idea why the leaderboard has him in 3rd as it looks like he has lead the way all day out of checkpoint 2 and is about 2 - 3 hours from checkpoint 3 where the leader is still being held. From twitter it looks like lots of runners were held at checkpoint 2 overnight. The leader is probably a bit upset given that he's missed most of the daylight which is easier to navigate in.

Edit: He's probably in 3rd on the leaderboard because the guy behind him has a 20 min credit to his name. It looks like he's at least 20 minutes ahead of him now though.

Bulmers

Looks to be in 2nd now on the leader board and having a rest.

I can't find no. 1 on the map at the moment?

Just looking along the route,there's some people on their own in the depths of the mountains right now, can't imagine it, fair play to them all but Enduro doing brilliantly.

Djoucer

Enduro is now in the lead on course with Paloncy closely behind.

3rd place has a 20 minute credit which puts first on the leaderboard as per last checkpoint.

The race re-started at 3am this morning as far as I can make out. Looks to be about 130km to go.

mloc123

I cannot follow it at all... Was everyone held at CP3? I presume whoever was held longest will get a time credit at the end etc..?

Djoucer

That's a good point actually. Leaderboard is down now but 10 mins ago, the only runner that had time credits was 1st.

mloc123

Yeah.. From what I could see the leader was held for much longer, I think the organisers will need to take some time at the end to work out the placings

lgk

Leaders were all held at CP3 / Middleton while the rest of the field caught up. Organisers made a decision to bunch the field again so they could provide enough safety cover, conditions are pretty rough.

Pavel arrived in there at 5:53 yesterday morning, Eoin at 16:46, so he'll have almost 11 hours credit over Eoin.

Clearlier

lgk wrote: »

Leaders were all held at CP3 / Middleton while the rest of the field caught up. Organisers made a decision to bunch the field again so they could provide enough safety cover, conditions are pretty rough.

Pavel arrived in there at 5:53 yesterday morning, Eoin at 16:46, so he'll have almost 11 hours credit over Eoin.

Eoin and several others were held at CP2 though.

kit3

What effect would that much rest have - is there a point where it is too much & you would have been better off to keep going (hope that makes sense !)

lgk

Reading between the lines of an update the organisers sent yesterday, he was pretty keen to get going.

At the point they got going again, Pavel would have been there for ~21 hours, Eoin ~10. Hopefully Eoin managed to get some food into him, bag some quality sleep, all depends on how quickly the organisers made decisions and let them know.

Djoucer

From organisers:

"FYI - I am currently working on sorting out the time credits for mandatory holds. The leaderboard is not currently reflective of true positions. Your patience is appreciated."

Enduro and Paloncy are more or less beside each other leading the course. Decent gap on others.

Peterx

A very good race report with added weather forced upon tactics coming up so!
Keep 'er Lit Enduro!

Djoucer

Looks like we're set for an epic race. The adjusted times are up.

Paloncy is first but Enduro is just 31 mins behind him. Enduro finished the most recent leg 11 mins ahead of Paloncy.

Both now at CP4.

123 km to go.

Clearlier

Djoucer wrote: »

From organisers:

"FYI - I am currently working on sorting out the time credits for mandatory holds. The leaderboard is not currently reflective of true positions. Your patience is appreciated."

Enduro and Paloncy are more or less beside each other leading the course. Decent gap on others.

The leaderboard has time credits for the first few runners now. Looks like Enduro would have to finish more than 42 mins ahead of Pavol in order to win. The tracker has them both still in CP4 so I guess they're taking a break. Incredible performances.

Djoucer

So is the credit included in the total race time , or are they to be added?

Clearlier

Djoucer wrote: »

So is the credit included in the total race time , or are they to be added?

It has already been calculated in the race time on the leaderboard as in the image attached to my previous post but you need to take it into account when looking at the race tracking website.

lgk

Eoin and Pavel out of CP4 and running together so far.

DubOnHoliday

Fascinating battle going on. Go Enduro!

groovyg

I wonder when he finishes would he be up for this challenge :pac:

Djoucer

Eoin and Pavel both reached the last checkpoint together at 8.40am.

Looks like the two managed to stay ahead of the bad weather. Diversions are in place for the remaining runners.

Looks like it could be a sprint finish between the two with just 40 miles (60km) to go

Open to correction but looks like there's just 42 mins between them.

Both are now stopped at CP5

woody1

JUST 40 miles to go

Bulmers

still neck and neck with Pawel and Enduro, looking at the route left there is still a serious amount of mountains to get over..tomorrow morning will be 5 days since race start, unreal when think of it.